History
The band's history is long and complicated, with guitarist/vocalists Dave McArtney and Harry Lyon having first played together in the mid 1960s. After several lineup changes, the band released its first album, Hello Sailor, in 1977. The line-up at that time was Graham Brazier on vocals and some guitar and saxophone, McArtney and Lyon on guitars and vocals, Lisle Kinney on bass, Jo Miller on Trombone and Ricky Ball on drums. Hello Sailor built a huge following playing in hotels scattered throughout New Zealand, their first gig being in Tokoroa at the Trees Tavern.
Three top 20 singles were taken from the album: "Gutter Black" written and sung by McArtney, "Blue Lady" written and sung by Brazier, and "Lyin' in the sand" written and sung by Lyon. It was the first record made in New Zealand that was certified gold.
Their second album, Pacifica Amour, was released in 1978, after the band had made a first trip to America to try to crack the American market. The trip was not a success, in part due to a party atmosphere and the consumption of large amounts of drugs.
In 1979 the band left for Australia, but this trip was also not a success. The band formally disbanded in 1980.
During the following decades, members of the band played and recorded both apart and together. The classic line-up gradually came together again in Brazier's early-1980s band The Legionnaires, and was officially reformed in 1985 (with former Coup d'Etat bass player Neil Hannan instead of Lisle Kinney) for a nationwide tour and an album, Shipshape & Bristol Fashion, that contained several new songs and some reworked older material. The band recorded another album, named The Album, in 1994, and released a "greatest hits" album called Sailor Story in 1996, and an all-acoustic album, When Your Lights Are Out, featuring acoustic versions of their best-known material, in 2007. The core members of the band continue working together and apart to this day.
Dave McArtney's song "Gutter Black" was chosen as the title music for the hit television series Outrageous Fortune, inducing a renegotiation of publishing rights for Sailor's earlier material in the band's favour.
In 2011 the band entered the APRA NZ Music Hall of Fame. They are also currently working on a new recording project at various studios including Roundhead and Montage.
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